Pieces and Puzzles: A Series of Drabbles
by her m o c k i n g j a y
Summary: You left with a smile. Mistaken, your sadness was hiding inside. Now all that's left are the pieces to find, the mystery you kept, the soul behind the guise.
1. ruined

* * *

Pieces and Puzzles

_A note before I start: Sakura is of legal age in all of these chapters. I'm not into pedophilia. Let's all just pretend she is unless stated otherwise_

**Standard disclaimers apply. **

_0._**1**_ wasted_

* * *

_I don't want to spend my life jaded, waiting to wake up one day and find that I let all of these years go by, wasted. I don't want to keep on wishing, missing the still of morning, the color of the night. I'm not spending any more time wasted._

* * *

The alcohol had been bought (bottles and bottles of amber and green glass), much to Kurogane's chagrin, and Fai downed the whiskey, the vodka, and the bourbon with a gruesome parody of a smile plastered on his face. The usual burn that accompanied whiskey was nonexistent and no matter how much he drank (pints upon pints; Kurogane stopped keeping count when Syaoran started swinging Mokona around by its ears) he didn't even feel the beginning of a buzz.

Frustrated, Fai had eventually retreated to his room, the false smile melting when he was away from the prying, happy (drunken), and irritated (Kurogane) eyes. He slipped into his room, sliding the door closed and holding tightly to the bottle in his hand. He found himself sitting on the railing of the wooden deck, staring at but not seeing the ground far below him.

Another glass of whiskey (swallowed like life, whole), but it still didn't kill the pain. Fai's lip curled (a snarl of a smile) and he threw the glass hard against a tree, listening as it shattered and watching the sparkling remains rain. His grip on the whiskey bottle loosened and it fell with a dull thump. Leaning his head back against the wall, he watched the amber liquid leak out sluggishly and realized he had to get a grip, had to control himself better, had to stop his destructive behavior before it endangered the princess and Syaoran. But he just couldn't find enough resolve.

* * *

She noticed immediately when he left, viridian trailing after white and blonde and blue and poignant falsities.

She played drunken cat.

"Meow, meow," she called, crawling, inching her way towards the door.

Sakura paused to lick at paw and ran it across her forehead, wiping away pesky dirt and smoothing misplaced fur. She continued along her journey slowly (he needed her now), not wanting to be detected by Big Doggy.

(Alas.)

"Where do you think you're going, miss kitty?" A large hand fell upon her head and she complied, rubbing upon it and purring happily (see my claws? Feel my fangs?). Innocent (jaded) eyes gazed up at Kurogane, but she let him in on her plan.

"Meow, meow, meow!" Sakura declared, looking towards the door.

"He's fine. Leave him alone," Kurogane growled, keeping Fai safe.

"Bro-hic-ken. Broken." Syaoran stated, barely conscious with his face smothered in a pillow, looking at the guiltless table leg (concealed sword, perhaps?) he had broken off moments before collapsing.

Big Doggy whirled, snarling and foaming and rabid.

"I said he's fine, so he's fine. He's not broken. He's just drunk."

"You're right, Fai's not broken. You can fix things that are broken and I'm just not sure that Fai can be fixed." Mokona noted sagely before promptly passing out.

Sakura snuck out the door.

* * *

He hoped she would come.

(He needed her too)

Fai had positioned himself so accidental (a lie among lies) suicide wasn't a possibility. The deck's railing was between him and the ground, and he curled in on himself, allowing this breach in his hardened defenses with no one watching.

(Please, please, please)

A cool, delicate hand feathered over his hair, smoothing it away from his damp forehead and he sensed her kneeling beside him. Fai looked up; burning emerald melted arctic cerulean. She recognized the intention in his eyes.

"Please…" he murmured, knowing she would understand but having to ask anyway. Familiar hands landed delicately on her shoulders before tracing up her neck and cupping her jaw. His thumbs swept across her soft cheeks.

She smiled (sweet, kind, genuine, _Sakura_).

"It's okay," she whispered, fingertips tracing his lips. "It's fine."

Their mouths met in a frantic clash of lips, tongue, and teeth and neither minded the painful clinking. His lithe body was pushing against hers with surprising intensity and she reveled in it, keening encouragingly in the back of her throat as his teeth nipped feverishly down the soft column of her neck. They struck a sensitive nerve and heat shot through her body.

A large, cool palm was pushing heavily against her lower back, angling her hips up against his. She giggled into his mouth, heady from the urgent sensations, dragging nails up his back. Fai's deft hands traced up her spine, dragging the pink shirt over her head and effectively mussing her hair. Her skin was lightly tanned and smooth perfection, like liquid feathers beneath his fingertips.

It was fleeting, these moments with his princess (saccharine with scarcity), but Fai revered in them, and in the momentary happiness that glowed within him.

* * *

End.


	2. subterfuge

_0.__**2 **__masquerade _

* * *

_You left with a smile_

_Mistaken, your sadness _

_Was hiding inside._

* * *

She was becoming more like him and he didn't like watching her break.

Her heart was shedding hope like leaves and it hurt Fai to see her face grow distant with shadows. Hollowness reigned where kindness once had, and he noticed a certain unnerving, familiar calculation building behind those viridian eyes. Recognition that the world was not as kind as she once believed—a loss of innocence and ignorance—was destroying her slowly.

Regret, once just a dull ache consistently residing within his chest, had morphed. Developing, altering, gliding swiftly into a viciously acute sting that stripped him of breath and fed guilt to famished disgrace and grief, which were ravenous for more somber companions inside Fai's fragmented heart. Malaise had trickled down his throat gradually before—

—before he acknowledged the cracks in her former self,

—before he recognized his inability to shield her against every threat,

—before he comprehended that, without her pure radiance, the taint of his past would consume him,

Yet now it poured and his stomach was heavy, and he tried to clench his teeth against the flood, but it settled uneasily in the pit of his belly and rapidly turned to stone.

(He awoke one morning from a fitful sleep and attempted to ignore the extra weight straining his limbs, crushing his heart, and wrenching at his soul.)

Fai noticed his own withdrawal from the group. His recession was, he deemed, necessary. The fragile control he held over the turbulence within him had limits and he knew that letting multiple people in would shatter him.

"_There's something I want…" _

And now that his princess gave up all pretenses, his mask slid more securely into place.

"_Everything shall be as you wish…because your wish is mine as well." _

* * *

_Now all that's left_

_Are the pieces to find,_

_The mystery you kept_

_The soul behind the guise_


End file.
